Instructions to Finding Peace in Pain: An Empirical Narrative

By Haneef Rasheed

I thought I had everything figured out: a healthy body, nothing to complain about, and two great job offers at the age of 24. Up to that point, I had led a very active, successful and happy life. Then, shortly after my 24th birthday, I had a hemorrhagic stroke completely out of the blue, caused by a very rare vein malformation that I didn't know I had been living with my whole life. I woke up a month later in the hospital, not being able to walk or control my left arm. Life as I knew it had been turned upside down. I had to learn to live with these physical deficits and the pain caused by this sudden, drastic change in my life.

This book is about my journey to reclaim my life and the methods I employed to remain positive and at peace through the arduous journey. By following the strategies and techniques contained in this book, my hope is that others can also stay hopeful and find peace while dealing with physical, emotional and psychological pain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Feb 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9780228827467

Haneef Rasheed

Haneef Rasheed was born into an upper middle class family in Saudi Arabia to parents of Indian heritage, the third of four siblings. At the age of 24, having accomplished a lot, including establishing and running two successful businesses in his 20s, working as a data scientist and analyst and securing two great job offers right after graduating from the university of Waterloo with a degree in economics and finance, his life was turned upside down after suffering an unexpected hemorrhagic stroke, leaving him partially disabled. In his search for peace in the face of pain, he came up with a set of 13 "Instructions" that helped him cope with his newfound situation, which he hopes will help and inspire others dealing with difficult circumstances. This is his first book.

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Instructions to Finding Peace in Pain

Copyright © 2020 by Haneef Rasheed

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-2745-0 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-2744-3 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-2746-7 (eBook)

Dedicated to my loving parents, Mohamed & Sara Rasheed

and my brother, Muneeb Mohammed.

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: My Story

Part 2: Instructions

Instruction #1: Understand and accept the problem.

Instruction #2: Monitor your reactions.

Instruction #3: Count your blessings.

Instruction #4: Look forward to the future and appreciate the present.

Instruction #5: Make sure you define the values in your life yourself—don’t let these be programmed by external sources.

Instruction #6: YOU choose how to play the cards you are dealt in life.

Instruction #7: Count your blessings again and cherish the present.

Instruction #8: Everyone has their own journey and path in life; persevere with patience.

Instruction #9: If you must compare yourself with others, always compare yourself with people who are worse off than you.

Instruction #10: Recognize that there are others suffering from and going through similar pain; you are not alone.

Instruction #11: Realize that someone, somewhere, sometime in the past has dealt with the exact same pain and problems you are presently facing and they persevered, so you can, too.

Instruction #12: Imagine your life without the problems you are facing and acknowledge that it wouldn’t be much different.

Instruction #13: Find peace in the fact that death is imminent for everyone and that everything has a beginning and an end. Some things don’t matter as much as we think they do in the end.

Preface

Pain comes in many forms. When most people hear the word pain, they think of physical pain, the unpleasant feeling one experiences following an injury or an illness. But there are other forms of pain that afflict people, which in my opinion are tougher to handle and cope with than physical pain. These types of pain are emotional, mental or psychological, resulting from a life-changing event or a sudden change in one’s life resulting in a major life crisis. These types of pain have the capacity to impact people just as much or more than physical pain, leaving them with a deep hidden scar which does not heal easily, nor is there a proven protocol for how to heal these scars.

Unfortunately, pain doesn’t typically afflict us in one form by itself. We are usually afflicted by multiple types of pain at once, causing a significant crisis and sending us in a desperate search to find a cure. It’s safe to say that all of us, at some point in our lives, have had to deal with some form of pain; whether it was a broken bone or a broken heart, pain finds its way to us eventually at some point or another. It affects us all in different ways—different people react to different forms of pain in different ways. I’ve seen pain motivate people and propel them to great heights. I’ve also seen the exact opposite. Pain causes many people to give up and sink into the deepest depths, never to emerge from them.

Based on my observations, there is one important element most people did not have when they were touched by pain: they didn’t have a road map or a guide to help them navigate through the pain and avoid getting sucked into the deep abyss of hopelessness that can come with pain.

I lived a relatively pain-free life for about 24 years. Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, I was hit with a combination of different types of pain, all at once. First, I had to figure out how to cope with my physical pain, which led to the other types of pain which I found were